A scary trend: sexy costumes for young girls

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, October 28, 2006

Photo: Deanne Fitzmaurice

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At Halloween Headquarters on Market Street, Jenna McGarry, 23, from SF, tries on a Little Red Riding Hood costume but decided that it was too short to buy. At left is her friend, Claire Reilly, 23, from SF. Photographed in San Francisco on 10/27/06. (Deanne Fitzmaurice/ The Chronicle) Mandatory credit for photographer and San Francisco Chronicle. /Magazines out. less

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At Halloween Headquarters on Market Street, Jenna McGarry, 23, from SF, tries on a Little Red Riding Hood costume but decided that it was too short to buy. At left is her friend, Claire Reilly, ... more

Photo: Deanne Fitzmaurice

A scary trend: sexy costumes for young girls

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Sophia Lever and her 13-year-old daughter, Storm, were looking for a Halloween costume on Friday. It turned out to be a long day.

For example, when they walked into Halloween Headquarters on Market Street, the first thing they saw was a wall of costumes that looked like they'd fit in better at Victoria's Secret than the Seven Hills School's Halloween party in Walnut Creek, which was where Storm was going after shopping.

The choices included "Sponge Bath Betty," a skimpy nurse's costume; "Home Wrecker," a construction-worker costume with a plunging neckline; and a "White Bunny" costume with a tiny skirt, white stockings and a garter belt.

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Storm was asked how she would describe those outfits.

"Revealing," she said.

"And that's why we are still looking," her mother said. "This is the fourth Halloween store we've been to."

It isn't as if the only Halloween costumes on sale for teenage girls and women feature tiny skirts and low-cut tops. But that's the way it seems. Somewhere in the last couple of years, Halloween went from pumpkin to cheesecake.

"Last year the racy ones took off, and we weren't quite prepared," says Krys Nelson, manager of the Halloween Headquarters store on Market. "This year we ordered more, and we can't get them out of the boxes fast enough."

Of course, risqué outfits have always been a part of the holiday for some women. But there are two differences now. The tart look has gone mainstream -- and the girls who are wearing it are much younger.

"We're seeing 12-year-olds buying them," says Sumanasa Jyoti, who manages a Halloween Headquarters store in Santa Cruz that is open year-round. "I'm amazed that they buy them, but they do. A lady came in the other day and bought a sexy ladybug costume for her 7- and 8-year-olds."

Jyoti thinks we can blame the trend on trade shows. The costume industry and the lingerie industry often held their national conventions in the same city. The two groups got together and realized they might be after a common market. So a company like Leg Avenue, which used to do hosiery, now is a major player in the sexy costume market.

The result: When a woman wants to wear something a little titillating to the Halloween party, she doesn't have to pull some lacy undies from the back of her closet. She can go to almost any costume store and buy something like "Shelley Pump Princess," a revealing gas station attendant outfit, complete with a button that reads, "Full Service."

And let's don't kid ourselves: These take more than a bit of courage to wear.

"Pretty much all of them, when they go into the dressing room, they go, 'Wow, is this too short?' " said Nelson. "A lot of these outfits you can't even bend over in."

In fact, they are so brief that most stores now sell "bloomers," ruffled pants about 2 inches longer than the skirt, in Jyoti's estimation.

That's not enough for some customers. Susan Ghest of San Francisco said she was sticking with an old-fashioned Alice in Wonderland costume for the party she and her husband were attending. Her reason was simple.

"I didn't want to look like a hooker," she said.

And that's fine. Grown women can certainly make up their own minds. But what makes some parents uneasy is the way the racy outfits are targeting not only teenage girls but preteens, meaning girls 10 to 12 years old.

For example, "Sexy Army Lady" isn't incredibly revealing, but it has a definite sexual vibe. And what about "Miss Teddy Bare," another costume sized for younger girls?

"We have a French maid costume for a toddler," Jyoti says. "It's amazing."

"I think there's a pressure," says Sophia Lever, the Walnut Creek mom. "It is like when you go into a store to buy a skirt and all you see are miniskirts. You keep looking and keep looking, and finally you say, 'OK, we'll buy a mini.' "

Storm said some of her friends purchased costumes on the Internet, only to find that the outfits were skimpier than they expected. They ended up either adding fabric to the skirt or wearing tights under the costume.

Of course, there are those who think we are making too much of this. Tonia Farinha, director of marketing for Spirit Halloween stores, which has 434 stores across the country, says she has noticed the trend in the last few years but would rather say that women are wearing "feminine" costumes, not sexy ones.

"Women want to look like women, not scary," Farinha says. "Women don't like to wear masks or a big green witch's nose."

Maybe so, but the Spirit Halloween Web site has a button to click for "sexy" costumes, and on Friday the top-selling women's costume was "Queen of Hearts," a French maid sort of outfit with high white stockings and a very short skirt.

Face it, says Jyoti: Sexy is the new scary.

"I was just saying to the guys who run the company that next year we need a sexier line," she says, "if that's what's selling."

However, that doesn't mean that everyone has been converted. Asked what she was wearing for Halloween, Jyoti said she already has her costume.